Saturday July 27, 7PM
IMMOVABLE OBJECTS
Film works by Rachael Guma
& a special performance by Optipus
w/ Bradley Eros, Victoria Keddie, Timothy Geraghty, and Rachelle Rahme
admission $6 – artist in person
From 18fps, 45rpm, 3spi (Rachael Guma, 2005)
Microscope Gallery is very pleased to welcome Rachael Guma for a night of her Super 8 film & film performance works involving live sound and vinyl record manipulations. Guma kicks off the program with a screening of Dear Phone, the 1976 short film by Peter Greenaway, an artist who has highly inspired her work. The night concludes with a live visual/sound poem performance of “A Poison Tree – William Blake” by Guma and other members of the expanded cinema collective Optipus.
to objectify the object
to embrace the accidents
to build upon buildings
to worship at the altar of analog
to activate the inactive
to see the sound
to reconstruct the constructs
to move the immovable
– RG
PROGRAM
(approximately 60 minutes)
Dear Phone - by Peter Greenaway
(1976, 17min, DVD)
“Fourteen short anecdotes about the uses and abuses of the telephone”. - BFI
La Ciudad de los Muertos (Cementerio de la Recoleta)
(2012, 3 min, Super 8, live sound)
The monuments of the past are alive in this city of the dead.
WASTE
(2005, 3 min, Super 8, silent)
Shot in glorious Kodachrome, WASTE delights in the discarded. Littered throughout the city streets, these candy wrappers, fast food containers, and coffee cups invade the screen as Ronald McDonald and the Starbucks mermaid vie for the spotlight.
Hula Loop
(2012, 3 min, Super 8mm, live sound)
Hula hoops and record loops with The Hula Hoop Harlot. Live sound with 45’ vinyl loops.
Kids Playing in Front Yard
(2006, 7 min, VHS, color, sound)
Baby birds hatch and the innocence of youth rides away from us on a brand new bike in this reconstruction of a home movie.
Safe and Sound
(2006, 3 min, Super 8, live sound)
Sound manipulations off an old soul 45 record playing the melody of “Safe & Sound” by Fontella Bass complement the silhouetted images of dispair.
POW!
(2013, 3 min, Super 8, silent)
Festival des Artes Autochtones du Solstice d’été et des Compétitions Internationales du Powwow Annual.
Cyclone
(2012, 5min, Super 8 mm, live sound)
A rollercoaster ride through moments in time.
Ice Castles
(2012, 3 min, Super 8, silent)
[fractured frosted fragments sunspot glass landscapes]
18fps, 45rpm, 3spi
(2005, 3-5 min, Super 8, live sound)
Super 8 found-footage film of the needle of a sewing machine blown up to 16 mm, hand-sewn, re-photographed back to Super 8, and hand-processed. The image of a pulsating needle as the thread punctures through the surface of the film strip, while the sound of a stylus needle scratches the surface of a rotating record player.
The Poison Tree (by William Blake)
(2013, 5-10 min, 16 mm/Super 8/video, live sound)
a visual poem with members of Optipus: Bradley Eros, Victoria Keddie, Timothy Geraghty, Rachelle Rahme
I was angry with my friend / I told my wrath, my wrath did end. / I was angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears: / And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night. / Till it bore an apple bright. / And my foe beheld it shine, / And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole, / When the night had veiled the pole; / In the morning glad I see; / My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
(William Blake)
– –
Rachael Guma is a filmmaker and sound artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Through her experiments with Super 8 film and analog sound, Guma strives to create an engaging live viewing experience that embraces the idiosyncratic qualities of technology, while maintaining a hand-crafted approach to her output. Since graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute, her films have screened at the San Francisco Cinematheque, RX Gallery, Mono No Aware, Northern Flickers, Microscope Gallery, and AXWFF 2011 where she was asked to take part in a lively panel discussion on women filmmakers. As a member of Optipus Film Collective, she has performed live foley sound at the Kitchen, Participant Gallery, Dense Mesh IV, and the 2011 Index Festival.
Bradley Eros is an artist working in myriad media: experimental film & video, collage, photography, performance, sound, text, contracted and expanded cinema & installation. Also a maverick curator, composer, designer & investigator. Concepts include: ephemeral cinema, mediamystics, subterranean science, erotic psyche, cinema povera, poetic accidents and musique plastique.
Tim Geraghty is an experimental filmmaker and video artist from Providence, Rhode Island, currently living in Brooklyn, New York. He’s a professional broadcast news and documentary editor interested in radically reediting footage, especially found footage from his line of work, into films with the associative language of dreams. He has previously exhibited his works at Anthology Film Archives, Migrating Forms, Issue Project Room, Microscope Gallery, White Box, SCOPE NY, Lincoln Center, SUDLAB (Naples) and the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
Victoria Keddie is an artist who works with signal generation, magnetic fields and broadcast transmissions. She is the codirector of E.S.P. TV, an analog video live taping event and broadcast on MNN network for video, sound and performance. She is a part of ESP LAB with Scott Kiernan, where she performs compositions using signal generation magnetic tape, modulation and broadcast media. She is a member of the film based collective, Optipus.
Rachelle Rahme is an artist and musician living in Bushwick, Brooklyn. As a founding member of the Optipus collective, her collaborative relationship with Rachael Guma and the other members of tonight’s group is ongoing and organic, encompassing a wide range of mediums and performance practices.
From The Poison Tree (Rachael Guma, 2013)
